Russia to Push Syria Peace Talks With Germany, France

Russia, Germany and France agreed to
push Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s government and rebels
back to the negotiating table, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s top foreign policy aide said.

“With our German and French partners, we agreed to
increase our work” with the respective sides in the Syrian
conflict, Yuri Ushakov, a former ambassador to the U.S. who
advises Putin on foreign policy, told reporters in Moscow today.

Putin met German Chancellor Angela Merkel in Berlin and
with French President Francois Hollande in Paris yesterday for
talks on Europe’s debt crisis and foreign-policy issues ahead of
a Russia-European Unit summit in St. Petersburg beginning
tomorrow. France disagrees with Russia over “who is responsible
for the violence and over the need for Assad to leave,”
Hollande said at a joint press conference with Putin.

“We need to compel both the authorities and the opposition
to get the political process going,” Ushakov said. “We’re
prepared to do that, and we called on our partners to also use
their areas of influence to actively weigh on the relevant
forces and leaders.”